Coming Undone
by slytherin-until-i-die
Summary: When Gotham's most dangerous criminal meets Dr. Harleen Quinzel, he makes it his goal to corrupt her and watch her come undone before him. But what if the infamous Joker is in too deep, and the object of his latest obsession has some secrets of her own?
1. Secrets

**Hi everyone! You may have noticed that I'm new to this particular area of – having been obsessing over **_**The Dark Knight **_**and Heath Ledger and just everything Batman recently, I thought I'd have a crack at writing a Harley origin story, set in the Nolanverse. I hope you enjoy it, and I'd love for you to tell me what you think! Don't be a stranger!**

/

Chapter One 

**Secrets**:

The girl in the office awoke with a start. Her head snapped up from the desk that had been her pillow for the last – she consulted the clock on the wall whose monotonous ticking filled the room, assaulting her desensitised eardrums – fourteen minutes or so. The outdated television she had wheeled in several hours earlier now displayed nothing but a blue screen, and the little digital timer on the VCR had counted all the way down to zero during her uneasy slumber. She sighed and straightened up in her leather chair, frustrated that she had fallen asleep and would therefore have to restart the tape, frustrated by how badly her body was dealing with, or not dealing with, these long shifts. As she reached for her polystyrene cup of black coffee, which had long since cooled far too much for her liking, there was a sharp knock on the door.

"Come in," she called, her voice more hoarse and tired than she expected.

The door opened, and a woman with red spectacles and dark brunette hair pulled back into a ponytail stepped into the office. She chuckled. "Go home, Harleen," said Dr. Joan Leland, pushing the television trolley to one side and sitting down in a generically-patterned plush chair.

"I'm just trying to understand my patient," Harleen explained weakly, the stinging pain in her eyes suddenly registering. She stood up, her stiff joints creaking in protest, and moved toward the baroque-style mirror on the eastern wall of her office in order to remove her contact lenses.

"As much as I love seeing you taking your work so seriously," she heard Joan say from behind her as the little transparent hemispheres fluttered into her hand. "I don't think exhausting yourself is going to make tomorrow morning any easier for you." She paused. Harleen threw the used contacts out of the open window onto the grass bank below and sat back down in her chair, facing her boss. Joan picked up the stack of video tapes on the desk and began reading their scrawled labels. "How many of these session tapes have you watched, anyway?"

"I'm on number twenty-six," said Harleen, combing roughly through her long blonde hair with her fingers and resting her elbow on the edge of the desk. Her eyelids felt as heavy as lead and she wanted nothing more than to close them, even if it was just for a moment. However, she knew that, if she allowed her mental and physical fatigue to take over, no matter how momentarily, she would find herself unconscious on her desk once more. "Well, I was," she amended. "I fell asleep." Harleen reached for the remote control but overbalanced, moved forward with too much momentum – her slim arm collided with her coffee and sent it tumbling to the ground. The cold brown liquid seeped into the lemon-yellow carpet.

"Shit," she groaned, but as she went to step around her desk, Joan stood up in front of her, halting her in her tracks.

"Harleen." Joan gripped Harleen's shoulders gently. Her tone was stern. "Go home. That's an order. You aren't doing anyone any favours by depriving yourself of sleep."

Harleen sighed in defeat. Her limbs suddenly felt weightier than ever, and it dawned on her that she had not slept for a solid thirty-six hours. At the start, she had thrown herself into this patient research project with a great deal of enthusiasm. _This _was why she had endured six years of college lectures and labs and term papers. _This _was what had inspired her to become a psychiatrist, specialising in the treatment of neurological disorders. _This_ was the kind of high-octane, high-energy, _high-profile _case she had been waiting for since her graduation from Gotham State University three years ago. Harleen had felt willing and even a little excited to delve into the mind of Arkham Asylum's high security patient number 7791, to sit down face to face with him and discuss the nature of his behaviour, to attempt to scratch the surface of his criminal genius. But now, two weeks after Dr. Leland had assigned her this new patient, on the eve of her first session with him, Harleen couldn't help but feel a prickling twinge of fear in her stomach. Not only that, her head was spinning with exhaustion and she knew that, if she didn't get home and to bed soon, she would probably collapse.

She rubbed her eyes. "What about the coffee?" she asked lamely, gesturing to the brown stain on the carpet.

"The cleaners will deal with it," Joan assured her, striding toward the door and opening it wide. "Come on, I'll drive you home."

"Don't worry about it, my car's here anyway," said Harleen, fumbling in the pocket of her blazer for her keys.

"Leave it here. I'll pick you up for work in the morning. Harleen, if you try and drive in this state you'll wrap your car around a tree." Joan smiled, and they headed outside to her car.

Harleen settled back into the passenger seat of Joan's dark green Toyota, taking in the cigarettes-and-peppermint scent of its interior. When Joan put her key in the ignition and the engine shuddered to life beneath them, Harleen felt the gentle vibrations send waves of calm rolling through her body, unknotting her tense muscles. If she didn't fall asleep now, it would be a miracle.

"So what are the arrangements for tomorrow?" she asked lightly as they drove away from Arkham, hoping that the effort required to maintain a conversation would keep her awake.

"Well, your session isn't due to begin until eleven." Joan shot a glance her way before moving her eyes back onto the road. "My shift's at ten-thirty. I know yours is supposed to start in the early hours, but how about you come in at ten-thirty too? That way you get a couple of extra hours to sleep and I can give you a ride to work."

Harleen had to work hard to keep the smile from her face. "That would be fantastic, Joan."

Joan laughed once. "It's really no problem." She paused, biting her lip, before glancing toward Harleen again. "Are you nervous?"

"Nervous?" She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Not really. He's just another patient, right?"

"Harleen, you and I both know _for a fact _that this guy is not 'just another patient'." Joan swallowed hard. "He's been at Arkham for the past eleven months, and during that time has been through seven different psychiatrists, all of whom have permanently transferred to different rehabilitation centres or are on long-term leave due to symptoms of mental disorders of their own."

"I know, Joan. But I'd be lying if I said I was nervous." A lie in itself. It came out smoothly, seamlessly, as Harleen's lies always did. "I'm... eager, if anything."

She peered out of the car window into the dark street. Joan was either driving dangerously fast, or Harleen was merely too delirious to force her brain to make sense of their surroundings. Outside of the car was a shadowy world of blacks, browns and greens.

"What makes you say that?" asked Joan, the corners of her thin mouth twitching slightly.

"Well..." Harleen cast around for an explanation, quickly settling on the one which she had used on her application form for her Human Psychology course at Gotham State. "I've always been attracted to cases of extreme personalities. They have the most secrets, waiting to be tapped into."

They were away from Arkham now, had crossed the bridge that separated the asylum and the run-down surrounding area of the Narrows. As they entered the suburb that formed the northern border of Midtown Gotham City, with its harlequin-green square lawns, white picket fences and lagoon-style swimming pools, Harleen couldn't help but feel the usual pang of jealousy she experienced when she drove along this road every single day. Despite her position at Arkham, the top neurological research centre in the state, her salary wasn't great – presumably due to her age and lack of experience with high-profile cases – and was the only source of income in their household. With her fiancé James out of work for what she knew would be a lengthy period of time, there was no way they would be able to afford one of _these _houses any time in the near future.

Joan bit her lip again. "Harleen?" she asked. Harleen looked up. "Do you ever consider that, maybe, there are some patients that just don't want to be helped?"

"Of course," she said, nodding. "But Joan, I'm not going into that office tomorrow morning in an attempt to 'help' him." She made quotation marks in the air with her manicured fingers. "Seven psychiatrists have tried and failed. Those seven psychiatrists proved that he can't be helped."

"So what's the point?" asked Joan, her voice soft. As Harleen had guessed from the beginning, this wasn't a genuine interrogation as to her feelings on the subject. Joan liked to question her staff on situations such as this to gage their ability to provide thoughtful, eloquent answers, answers that not everybody would come up with. Harleen thought back to her first year of college, when her lecturer had asked the class to state and jot down a reason why a human being would kill another human being. It turned out that every single student of the thirty-eight others in the room had decided upon 'because they hate them'. The lecturer's eyes had widened as Harleen read out her answer. 'Because they love them,' Harleen had said, before being given an A+ for that lecture. _Outside thinking_, that lecturer had called it. _The opposite of one's immediate response_.

"If I can't help my patient, then I'm going to do whatever I can to _understand _him." They were outside Harleen's faded off-white apartment block now. She glanced up. The curtains in her living room were wide open, and the flickering quality of the light visible suggested that James had lit a candle. She swallowed, feeling a lump rise in her throat and her heart rate increase in tempo. "Thanks for the ride, Joan. I'll see you in the morning?"

"No problem. Goodnight, Harleen." Harleen waved half-heartedly as Joan pulled away from the kerb and headed back the way they had come. She turned to face the building. Sighing, she fumbled once more in her pocket for her set of keys and made her way up the front steps.

She climbed up to the fifth floor and stopped outside apartment number 26. "James?" she called uncertainly as she gently pushed open the already unlocked door with her fingertips. No response. The hallway was dark, but the eerie light emanating from the living room was definitely being cast by a flame of some sort. Harleen considered leaving the apartment straight away, calling Joan on her cellphone, staying over at a friend's. Was she able to deal with this now? She released a breath she felt as though she'd been holding forever, raised her chin and strode down the hallway, pausing in the doorway to the living room. Her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. _Oh god._

James lay on the leather couch in front of the television, which seemed to have the volume switched off and was playing a rerun of some eighties game show. His long ash brown hair flopped down lazily over one eye, and in one hand he held a two-thirds empty bottle of value Scotch. All of these things took a while to register in Harleen's mind. The first thing she noticed was the lit candle in the centre of the wooden table by the window.

She instantly felt her pupils dilate as she watched the little flame flicker, her blood roaring in her ears. She cocked her head to one side and stepped closer, staring at the burning wick until it hurt her eyes. All those shades of orange, yellow, smouldering red, writhing and twisting around each other in a beautiful, seductive dance that pulled her closer, begged her to join in... for a second, there was nothing Harleen wanted to do more than caress the molten wax, lay the candle down to burn against the oak table, watch the fire lick the walls that surrounded her, see the entire building eaten up by flames.

She forced her eyes closed and tried to regulate her breathing. _Remember training. Remember therapy_, she repeated to herself, internally or aloud, she wasn't sure. Reigning in her emotions, keeping control, she walked as calmly as she could to the sink, filled a plastic cup with cool water from the tap and, releasing another breath as she did so, extinguished the candle on the table. The room faded to darkness, the only light filtering in from the streetlamps beneath the window, and all she was left with a little pale grey smoke and the sulphurous aroma of a burnt-out flame.

Now she turned her attention to her fiancé. "James," she coaxed gently, slipping the Scotch from between his fingers with ease and setting it down on the coffee table. She rolled him onto his side and felt his forehead – his temperature seemed normal. Harleen had become an expert in dealing with James when he drank himself into oblivion, something which, unfortunately, had been a regular occurrence since he lost his job two years previously.

James' eyes flickered before opening. "Harley..." he murmured softly, reaching out and wrapping a strong arm around her shoulders.

"I'm right here, baby," she assured him, her voice so low it was almost a whisper. She got up onto her knees and leaned toward him, resting her head on his chest. "I'm right here."

Moments later, when James' soft snores again filled the room, Harleen lifted her head as carefully as she could and gently pulled her arm from his grip. "Harley..." said James. She turned and went to leave the room, but before she could, James came around, his eyes opening, his body stiffening. "Where are you going, pet?" he asked, his Irish lilt prominent, his breath permeated with alcohol fumes.

"I've got to sleep, James, I have work tomorrow," she explained slowly, carefully, inching away from him.

His iron grip tightened around her wrist. "You can sleep here with me, can't you, Harley?" he asked, his voice dangerous. His stormy grey eyes bore imperiously into hers.

"James, I'm going to bed," she stated as firmly as she could, but her voice had begun to shake.

James' hand tightened even more – he held her wrist so hard that it was painful and would surely bruise. Harleen winced, her eyebrows pulling together. "I'm sorry, pet, am I frightening you?" he asked, a malevolent half-smile forming around his lips, a smile that didn't touch his eyes. Harleen remembered a time when James would smile, really smile, and the beauty of it would knock the wind out of her. The sharp pain in her arm brought her quickly back into the present. "Stay with me, Harley. I'd really like you to stay with me."

"Okay," she bit out, her voice barely audible.

James lay back down and made a space for her beside him. Harley's slight frame nestled easily, perfectly, into his arms, as though the two were a pair of corresponding puzzle pieces, manufactured from the start to fit together. This was how it had always been. They were soul mates – there was no doubt about it – but James' addiction to drink and violent personality were becoming a major issue and driving a wedge between them, forming a rift, a rift that, as much as Harley hated to admit it, she wasn't sure could ever be healed.

She was enveloped in warmth as his arms closed around her, his fingers lacing with hers over his heart. He tilted her chin upward and kissed her tenderly, playfully, the way a couple in high school would kiss in the movie theatre or outside the front gates at school to incense a teacher. Despite his stale breath and the pain he had just inflicted upon her, she kissed him back, feeling him smile against her mouth.

"I love you, Harley," he whispered, slurring slightly, his lips brushing her ear. "I love you and you're all _mine_."

She couldn't tell if this last statement was a threat or a promise.

"I love you too," she said quietly, her wrist throbbing. A frown adorned her face. She was allowing her personal life to take over. She should not be thinking about herself at a time like this, on the eve of one of the most important events of her career so far. She had to concentrate on tomorrow. Tomorrow. The day she would meet the Joker.

The thought of his name, the name of the most dangerous criminal mastermind Gotham had ever seen, conjured vivid images in her mind. The white greasepaint. The gruesome scars that formed a permanent smile on his face. The piercing green eyes that stared down the camera lens in every session tape she'd watched so far. She heard his maniacal laughter ringing in her ears.

Tomorrow, she would be thrown in at the deep end. And, by God, she was going to stay afloat if it killed her.

/

**So there's chapter one. What did you think? What did you like/dislike? What information have you gleaned about our dear Harley so far? Leave me a review, it would make me so so happy!**


	2. Diagnosis

Chapter Two

**Diagnosis:**

When Harley woke, she was alone. Her hand clenched, her fingers searching out James, but he was nowhere to be found. She sat up slowly, the ghost of a dream flitting around in her head, beating his wings against her skull, struggling to be remembered. She still wore the grey crew-neck sweater, white blouse and slim-leg khaki pants from the day before – her clothing suddenly felt too hot and tight and clung to her uncomfortably. As she ran a hand through her long hair, she sighed, realising how little could be done to transform it from the unruly mess it had become overnight into something it was socially acceptable to wear out among the general public. A hot shower and a change of clothes were definitely in order, she decided, standing up, raising her arms high above her head, feeling the elasticity returning to her dormant muscles.

A note lay on the kitchen table, written with a permanent marker in James' rough scrawl.

_Harley,_

_Gone out. Probably back later. If not, don't worry about me._

_- James._

She bit her lip and put the lid back on the marker, a task her fiancé seemed to have forgotten to complete in whatever state he had been in when he left in the early hours of the morning. This was nothing new to Harley. As much as she hated to admit it, she really wasn't concerned about him when he left anymore – it happened so often and, although she was still entirely clueless as to where James spent his days, the worst condition she had ever known him to return to her in was blind-drunk, a state that, after three years, she was more than equipped to deal with, and covered in an assortment of tiny bruises and scratch marks, his clothing torn, his lips swollen and bleeding. Harley remembered that day, over eighteen months ago now, three weeks after their engagement – it was significant for a number of reasons. It marked her first true act of defiance against James, the first time she had questioned his unexplained absences, not to mention their first official split since the start of their relationship almost seven years earlier, although they had 'forgiven and forgotten' after several days.

"_Who is she, then?" Harley had asked icily over the top of her magazine._

"_What was that?" James staggered into the room, dragging his feet, overbalancing so much that he had almost toppled over. For the first time since James had started drinking, Harley didn't rush to his aid – instead she sat, feigning nonchalance, her eyes wide with spiteful curiosity._

"_I SAID," Harley repeated patronisingly, "Who is she? This woman you seem to spending a lot of your time with?" James had just stared at her, his eyes glinting. Harley laughed blackly. "Oh, I get it. How stupid do you think I am?" She threw down her magazine and stood facing him, her hands on her hips, her head held high._

"_Don't accuse me of things you don't know anything about," James muttered darkly, an edge to his voice Harley had never heard before. He appeared to be shaking with anger._

_Harley refused to let it go, her heart pounding, the adrenaline coursing through her."Oh, please James, don't treat me like an idiot. Do you think I haven't noticed that you're covered in hickies? We sleep in the same bed, if you've forgotten. It certainly isn't me that's been sucking on your neck and scratching fingernail marks into your back."_

Harley shuddered as she recalled the memory. The darkness in their apartment, his raised voice interspersed with bursts of drunken, raucous laughter, the stench of alcohol on his breath as he had stalked toward her, grabbing a kitchen knife as he went... had he known at that moment that his next actions would alter their relationship forever, become the subject of Harley's nightmares, instil so much fear into the love of his life that she was became frightened to even co-exist in the same room as him? She headed into the bathroom and stripped off her clothes before stepping into the shower and turning the water up as hot as it would go. The memory continued to play as though on a high-definition television screen inside her head.

_Harley knew that James was too large and too powerful for her to fight off. She moaned as he pulled her into a headlock, his arm crushing against her windpipe with such force she felt as though she might black out. He drew the knife out in front of her face and trailed it down from her ear lobe to her jaw, pressing hard enough to only just break the skin._

"_I've always liked that about you, Harley," he said, a smile in his voice, twisting her head sideways slightly, cupping her cheek with his hand. "You're a little comedienne, aren't you? Always cracking jokes, you're hilarious!" Having evidently noticed her body turning slightly limp, he relinquished his grasp on her neck and turned her sharply to face him._

"_James, please..." she murmured, her eyes wide with terror. Her legs were trembling so much that her knees crumpled – she fell forward into James, who held her with such ease that she may as well have been a ragdoll in the hands of an overly-forceful child._

"_Did you know that the first thing I noticed about you was your name?" he asked, tightening his grip around the back of her neck, forcing her to look up at him. "Harleen Quinzel. Rework it a little, and you get Harley Quinn! Harley Quinn – harlequin – don't you get it? You were born to be a clown!" James laughed hysterically, inadvertently slicing off a chunk of her hair near her collarbone in his haphazardness. Harley gasped as the wispy streaks of blonde fell to the ground._

"_James..." she muttered, her voice shaking and almost inaudible._

"_I could never seriously _marry_ you!" he had said, ignoring her pleas completely, his face a theatrical mask of faux horror. "I could never take that name away from you, little harlequin! Harley _Casson-" _He spat his own surname, "-could never compete with Harley Quinn!"_

_He had forced her down onto the surface of the little wooden coffee table, flipped her roughly over onto her stomach and pulled down her white tank top so hard that the straps had come away from the torso section entirely and fallen away, leaving her lying there in just her jeans and her bra. She had tried to squirm away, to scream, but James' weight on top of her was far too much for her slight frame to get away from. He clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the pained squeals escaping, obviously not wanting the neighbours alerted to her distress, and yanked her head up violently by her hair._

"_Just lay still, baby – this won't hurt one bit, I promise."_

_And with that, James had taken the knife to her skin, broken through to the fleshy, raw, pink part, watched and laughed as the blood had dripped down her back. Harley knew she must have passed out at some point, either from the pain, the lack of air with access to her lungs or simply the fear, because when she came around, James had vanished. When she tried to sit up, to take action, to phone the hospital, the police, _anyone_, the pain was too great, and decided instead to lie as still as she could and just wait. Wait to be found, wait to die, she had no idea. Her back was slick, drenched with her own blood, and, as she moved, she realised it had congealed, the remnants of her clothing sticking grotesquely to her fragile skin. Imagining what she must look like from behind made her dry-retch and, before she knew it, she had blacked out again._

Harley climbed out of the shower cubicle and wrapped a white towel around her body. Her head ached and her knees shook after reliving the memory – she closed her eyes and massaged her temple, breathing in through her nose for a count of four seconds and out through her mouth for a count of six. This was the exercise she had been taught in therapy when she was treated for the mental problems the incident had caused her. She found herself to be frightfully clumsy, plagued with horrendous nightmares and, for the first time in her life, sleep walking relentlessly every single night. Although she had never informed the police of what James had done, she was advised to visit a psychotherapist. Harley found this strange and, in all honesty, futile – as a psychiatrist, she wondered why she was paying somebody to diagnose a problem she could surely identify herself, given half a chance. But she took her doctor's advice and met Dr. Kristy Wales, a cheerful, middle-aged British therapist who had worked in her field for over twenty-five years. Harley had been a good patient, despite her scepticism over how much the treatment would actually help – she had attended the sessions, completed the breathing exercises, even submitted to hypnotism on one occasion. When the analysis period of her therapy came to an end, Harley's own personal diagnosis was proved right on the majority of counts; anxiety related sleep disorder and ecdemomania had been easy for her to figure out based purely on her behaviour and habits. Dr. Wales' third finding, however, certainly came as a surprise.

"_Pyromania?" she had asked, her jaw dropping. "Are you serious?"_

_Wales nodded. "It's treatable, there really is no need to worry about it."_

"_But... how? Why?" Harley's lecturers had touched on pyromania during her six years of college. The obsessive desire to start, observe and even touch fires was thought to be a deep-rooted psychological disorder often caused by mutated or distorted alleles in DNA at conception, not something brought on in two months because of a traumatic experience with one's violent, drunk boyfriend. _

"_I thought you were a psychiatrist yourself, Harleen?" Wales had asked, smiling. "Pyromania is an ICD, an impulse control disorder, just like..." She paused. "Gambling and obsessive vandalism. In our hypnotism session, I saw your eyes when I lit the candles, Harleen. Your heart rate almost doubled, and you started shaking like a kid on Christmas morning."_

"_But its teenagers that become pyromaniacs, not adults."_

"_In most cases, yes. But disturbing experiences in adult life can cause the disorder to flare up, in particular, physical violence involving somebody we trust." Harley sank back in her seat and closed her eyes, shaking her head slowly. "I've seen the scars, Harleen," said Wales softly, tilting her head to one side. She sighed. "These sessions are private, but if he's hurting you..."_

"_He isn't!" Harley snapped, standing up. She observed Wales' wide eyed stare and the rate at which her heart rate had suddenly increased, and sat down once more. She exhaled slowly and raised her gaze to meet the doctor's eyes once more. "What should I do?"_

"_Well," Wales began, relaxing slightly in her seat. "I've prescribed you some medication to control the... condition. The ecdemomania, too. The nightmares... well, I'm afraid only time will be able to get rid of those completely. For now, just try to stay as relaxed as possible. Have some 'you' time. Have a bubble bath every night. But... oh Harleen, please try to avoid lighting any candles."_

_Harley had laughed as sincerely as she could manage. Pyromaniac, she thought. I've been labelled. I'm a pyromaniac. I'm a freak. Obsessed with fire. Pyromaniac._

Now, as Harley pulled the little brown glass bottle from the medicine cabinet and swallowed down one of the white pills that helped control her impulses, she came to terms with how much her life had changed since James' first act of violence against her, or how little, in some ways. She lowered the towel so that it was held in place by her underarms, revealing her bare shoulders and upper back, and, slowly, giving her eyes and mind a chance to adjust to the gruesome sight, the marks left by James' knife that she could never become accustomed to. The word HARLEQUIN, carved across the top of her back by the love of her life, her high school and college sweetheart, just below her neck, red, grotesque, scarred forever for everyone to see. She sucked in a sharp breath and reached back to touch the marks – they only stung slightly, a vast improvement on those first few months during which she had barely been able to move without pain, without blood, without releasing agonized screams. With proper medical treatment, the letters could have almost disappeared entirely. If the wound had been cared for, sterilized, stitched up by a professional, she was sure she would not be looking at the word HARLEQUIN etched into her skin anymore. But going to a hospital would have meant answering questions, and answering questions would surely have led to implicating James in the ordeal.

_The heart works in mysterious ways_, her mother had once told her, and Harley and James were a shining example of this. Harley knew she should have hated him, run to the police, packed her bags and left him after what he had done to her. She had tried to on several occasions, but every time, every single time James hit her, threw something at her, screamed in her face and she gathered her possessions, left the apartment and went to lock the door, to escape from him for good, she found her feet carrying her back inside, back into his waiting arms. _One day_, she told herself. _One day I'll be in a place where he can't hurt me anymore. _Harley loved James, and she knew James loved her. But sometimes she hated him, and all of the time she hated the alcohol he drank, the long nights he stayed out and, above all, _herself _for not seeing his addiction coming. _My fault, _she thought. _I should have put out the flame before it razed us to the ground_.

The phone started ringing in the hallway. She wrapped the towel back up around herself and looked up at the clock on the wall for the first time since she woke – it was only 7:30am. Who on earth would be phoning at this hour? She picked up the receiver and found herself greeting a very flustered-sounding Joan Leland.

"Is everything alright, Joan?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Not quite, Harleen," said Joan tightly, her voice slightly hushed. "I'm afraid your new patient has been causing some problems for us this morning."

Harley's heart fluttered against her ribcage. She had almost forgotten about her first meeting with the Joker this morning. She gasped, stifling the sound as much as possible with her hand, as her dream from last night flooded back to her. Lying in James' arms, highly-coloured images had flashed through her troubled mind – not lurid to Harley in her unconscious state, but in the eyes of others, the stuff of nightmares. The GCN news report following the explosion at MCU several months back. The shocking scars of his Glasgow smile, the origin of which was still unknown. Screaming victims. Instruments of torture. And the most prominent of all that Harley could remember – the expression on his face, his eyes glinting with inquisitiveness, his knowing grin concealing some dark secret. She felt colour rise in her cheeks but she forced her emotions down, refusing to allow this dream to unhinge her in any way. Today she would begin her journey toward learning his secrets and exposing the truth behind the jokes, the gasoline, the bombs and the greasepaint.

"What happened?"

"He made a bid for freedom and, by God; it would have worked if Dr. Fineran hadn't swapped to take the night shift at the last minute. He stayed here all night then went to get in his car and leave at 6-ish this morning, and there he was, climbing out of the open window at the end of Block A. No one knows how he got out – his door was open, but the key to his cell hadn't been moved from behind the superintendant's desk."

"He must have used force," Harley mused, sitting down and tightening her towel around her body.

"We couldn't find any sign of a struggle," said Joan, sighing deeply. "I know I told you to come in later, but... if you don't mind..."

"Of course, Joan, don't worry about it. I'll start walking in ten minutes."

"No, you won't, I'll swing by and pick you up. Let's say in, hm, twenty-five minutes? The situation seems to be under control here for now, but we may have to bring your appointment with the Joker forward slightly as a matter of, uh, urgency." She chuckled once without humour.

Harley's stomach turned a somersault. "To what time?" she asked with as much poise as she could manage.

"How does nine sound to you?"

She swallowed. Nine was just a little over an hour away. She suddenly felt unprepared, under-qualified and guilty for slacking off when she should have been readying herself for this appointment. All of those late nights when she had fallen asleep at her desk while watching the Joker's past session tapes... she should have invested in some caffeine patches.

"Nine. That's... that'll be fine."

"Okay. See you in twenty-five, then. Goodbye, Harleen."

"Bye, Joan." She hung up the phone and hurried to her bedroom to get dressed.

/

Twenty minutes later, Harley stood outside a pale oak door through which she had walked many times, but never with as much trepidation as she felt now. She took a deep breath. Why was she allowing a man she had never even met unhinge her so much? In her eyes, he was not a master criminal, merely her patient, a patient she had been entrusted to care for, protect and, in the long-term, even heal.

"Are you ready?" asked Joan who stood at her elbow. When she nodded, Joan pushed open the door and Harley strode inside.

At first it was pitch black – Harley gasped as her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. Her breath hitched and, for a moment, she held it in. And during that second when she made no sound whatsoever, she heard another person breathing somewhere on the other side of the small room. At the sound of her sharp intake of breath, the man – it was definitely a man – let out a long, hearty laugh, an echoing cackle that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Then the switch outside the room was flipped, presumably by Joan, and Harley and the Joker faced each other for the first time underneath the harsh, fluorescent ceiling lights.

He sat in a metal seat that was bolted to the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back, his ankles strapped to the legs of his chair. Harley had specifically requested that he not be forced into a straitjacket – in her three short years as a professional psychiatrist, she had learnt that the device made patients one of two things; either stubborn, brooding and reserved, or more violent and hostile than usual. All Harley wanted was for him to be himself so that she could form a true, unadulterated opinion on his condition. The man that sat before her looked nothing like the Joker she, and everybody else, had seen on the news channel. The greasepaint that adorned his face for the public was gone, his usually greenish hair curly and a dark, dirty shade of blonde. He smiled at her, somewhat reservedly compared to his usual standards, as she took a seat opposite him. As no desk sat between them, Harley felt oddly exposed. She refused to let this show, though – instead, she sat up straight in her chair and crossed her ankles. For a moment they just stared at each other, then he opened his mouth to speak. Although her attention had immediately been drawn to the gruesome scars on his cheeks, slicing dark, puckered lines from the corners of his mouth to the edges of his jaw, she didn't look at them. Instead she took in the sight of his dark green eyes as they devoured her.

And then he spoke, his voice lilting, his tone patronising yet filled with secrets. "Good morning... Doctor."

/

**REVIEWS PLEASE!**


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